


My Light In The Dark

by cxptained



Category: Doctor Who, Torchwood
Genre: Angst, Between Seasons/Series, Boyfriends, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Jack Harkness/Ianto Jones, Fluff, Jack loves Ianto, M/M, Mentions of Jack Dying, Mentions of The Year, Post-Episode: s02e13 Exit Wounds, Scars, Tenth Doctor Comes Back For Jack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2020-03-25
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:53:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23317918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cxptained/pseuds/cxptained
Summary: "When Jack wakes to the sound that he could never forget, it takes him a moment to realise that noise was not simply a repeat in his mind from a dream he already can’t place. The screeching noise of the TARDIS coming to a halt somewhere in the close vicinity is something that you cannot ignore.Not when you’re Jack Harkness.His eyes flick open and Ianto, as always, is sleeping on top of him. Jack takes a moment to assess the situation. How best to remove himself from this arrangement without waking his boyfriend? Carefully, he pries the grip of a hand that’s holding onto the white shirt Jack so often sleeps in off the material. Legs are shifted so they untangle from each other slow enough that Jack could be mistaken for simple turning in the night."When the Doctor turns up in the Hub in the middle of the night, Jack Harkness is faced with a tough decision. Go back, be his companion and travel the universe? Or stay with the man he's too afraid to admit he loves out loud. Is it really a question? More of a no brainer to Jack.
Relationships: Jack Harkness/Ianto Jones
Comments: 5
Kudos: 153





	My Light In The Dark

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone! I'm so excited to bring this to you because honestly it's taken over most of my mind today. Hope you enjoy! 
> 
> Anything involving Ianto was written by blipintiime. The wonderful Ianto to my Jack and without whom, half of this fic would cease to exist.

Those engines are an imprint on Jack Harkness’s mind. So often the captain is pulled from sleep to the sound of pulsating energy echoing about the room. They’re the after effects of a dream full of adventure or, in some cases, nightmares. Those are rare nowadays.

They’ve been rare since Ianto Jones took up common residence within his bunk down below the Hub. Before Ianto’s arrival in his bed, Jack had taken it upon himself to never sleep again. He didn’t need to; his immortality staved off the necessity to rest his head against his pillow and black out the world for eight hours a night. Jack found this a useful tool as nightmares were the only thing his brain could conjure up for those eight hours.

But Ianto had seemingly changed that pattern. It was an accident, of course. Jack never intended to sleep that first night post-sex. The two were laid together, clothes abandoned somewhere within his tiny living space, and simple white sheets covering them for warmth. Ianto had found himself atop his captain. Jack laid flat on his back, Ianto taking residence on his chest. With each breath Jack took, his ‘post-shift fling’ as they had been back then, raised up and down just enough to be noticeable.

Jack’s fingers had dragged through locks of dark hair as he stared at the ceiling; Ianto’s nose pressed into his neck and his breath tickling Jack’s skin. He could do this for eight hours, he thought. He could stay right here and make sure a handsome man got the sleep he needed that night.

Moments later he’d been out like a light. Completely involuntarily, but out nonetheless and Jack had slept through the entire night - nightmare free. In fact, he had woken up that morning to Ianto smiling up at him rather than to the cold sweats and struggling breaths he was used to.

It had been incredibly refreshing

And so, Jack Harkness began to sleep. It was only the nights that Ianto stayed over. Once or twice a week at most but sleep was still sleep. Then, weekly sleeps turned into every other day, and every other day had become every single night within the space of a couple of months.

Nightmares weren’t banished for good, they still came and went but they were rarer than Jack had ever known them to be and he found them much easier to deal with. Ianto was a professional at calming him down at three in the morning, it seemed.

So, when Jack wakes to the sound that he could never forget, it takes him a moment to realise that noise was not simply a repeat in his mind from a dream he already can’t place. The screeching noise of the TARDIS coming to a halt somewhere in the close vicinity is something that you cannot ignore.

Not when you’re Jack Harkness.

His eyes flick open and Ianto, as always, is sleeping on top of him. Jack takes a moment to assess the situation. How best to remove himself from this arrangement without waking his boyfriend? Carefully, he pries the grip of a hand that’s holding onto the white shirt Jack so often sleeps in off the material. Legs are shifted so they untangle from each other slow enough that Jack could be mistaken for simple turning in the night.

And last but not least he lifts Ianto’s body from his chest just enough that he can slip out from beneath him. Jack lowers him those few inches back down onto the mattress and gets to his feet.

Seemingly, it’s all in vain as his boyfriend stirs within the covers. Jack should have realised he wouldn’t stay asleep. Ianto is a notoriously light sleeper – in fact it’s lucky that Jack barely moves during the night else surely the Welshman would never get a good night’s rest. He wouldn’t be surprised if Ianto had been awake from that first engine noise.

“Don’t suppose you know why he’s ‘ere?” Ianto asks, voice low from sleep. He’s already propping himself up on his elbow. Jack grabs a pair of Ianto’s jogging bottoms that are hung over a low rung of the ladder down to his bunk. He’s not about to go and possibly fight an alien threat masquerading as the Doctor in only his boxers.

It’s not for modesty purposes though. Jack just knows it’s cold up there.

“Not got a clue.” He answers honestly, slipping his feet into each leg hole and pulling them up. “Go back to sleep. I’ll be back. Whatever he wants can wait until the Gwen’s had her coffee in the morning.”

Ianto just nods, hesitating for just a moment before dropping back down to lie on his back. Jack leans over his partner and kisses his forehead softly.

“I _will_ be back.” Jack promises, tone firm but fond. Ianto simply smiles softly.

And then he’s gone, climbing the ladder out of his bunk hastily.

Jack surfaces in his office. He stops by this desk briefly as he moves through the room, wrapping his Vortex Manipulator around in its customary place on his left wrist and swiping his Webley.

“Put the gun down, Jack.” A voice, just as familiar as the engines themselves, berates him. Jack’s stomach twists when he hears it in a way he can’t tell if it’s good or bad.

“Just a precaution.” The captain jokes, “How was I supposed to know it’s really you?”

How could he ever mistake him? That should be the real question. Jack Harkness files upon files of the Doctor within the Archives of Torchwood Three. On each face, each TARDIS, each companion. They’re not flawless, of course, but what Torchwood can find on the Time Lord, he has written down and put away for safe-keeping.

Before Jack stands a familiar face. Gorgeous, always stunning. No matter the face, Jack will fall for him every single time and he fell for this one earlier this year. With a long brown trench coat, spiky dark hair and casual shoes that Jack has always assumed must be good for running in if nothing else. He wears a suit, as always. Not as good as Ianto’s suits, Jack finds himself thinking.

But it’s the Doctor.

Oh, that’s the Doctor alright. 

Arms outstretch, a grin pulls tight over both men’s lips and they embrace. They squeeze each other together, old friends reuniting once again in what Jack hopes is not about to be dire circumstances. It’s impossible to keep the glee he feels from simply _seeing_ the Time Lord again from taking over every expression he holds as he keeps the Doctor firm within his embrace.

Everything is the same.

The way the Doctor fits in his arms, that classic coat covering his clothes, even the way he smells. He smells like the TARDIS and the TARDIS has smelt like home for as long as he can remember. Safety and warmth and the slight whiff of rift energy as a fuel.

“Do you know what time it is? Three in the morning!” Jack chastises with a roll of his eyes.

“Does that matter?” The Doctor grins against Jack’s shoulder.

“Suppose not to you.” Jack chuckles. He doesn’t let go. Can’t bring himself to do so. But hands find his shoulders and slowly he’s moved back and away, Jack’s arms falling to his side.

“How long’s it been?” Jack can’t help but ask as he remains under the Doctor’s grasp. His eyes betray the worry behind the question. Perhaps he has been forgotten over centuries? Only remembered when there was nobody else around.

“Only a few years.” The Doctor answers. Jack doesn’t know if that’s better or worse, quite honestly. “And for you?”

“A year since you dropped me off.” Jack says with a nod. So much has happened in that year. Jack isn’t sure he could have predicted a single part of it. Hands relinquish his shoulders finally and Jack finds himself missing the warmth already. “Lost half of my team.” He admits, feeling that lump settle in his throat as it always does when talks about Tosh and Owen.

The Doctor doesn’t quite know what to do with that information. He averts his eyes around the Hub, seemingly fixating for a few moments on Myfanwy, their pet Pterodactyl, who was woken from her slumber high in her perch by the TARDIS coming to land on the gangway.

“And you’re still…” The Doctor trails off as he looks back to Jack and loses his words. He gestures with his hand, insinuating there should be more to come.

“Leading Torchwood?” Jack fills in a little snappier than perhaps he had meant it. Emotions were all over the place between the two, unable to find a happy medium to land in. “Yeah, I’m still leading Torchwood.” He says, nodding.

“Right, of course.” The Doctor nods, hands going up in a slight surrender at Jack’s colder tone. 

Jack takes the moment to look over the Doctor properly. Ignore the handsome features that pour across at him if he can and just watch him. He looks down and lonely. Jack has to wonder what he could possibly have faced in these couple of years that it’s been since they last spoke that could have created this utter sadness.

“And you’re happy here?” The Doctor asks. That catches Jack off guard. He may have lost two of his closest friends; it may have destroyed him and the rest of his team from the inside out to have to take their bodies and deposit them in the morgue for the final times but, god… he’s happy here. The team mourn and they grieve and they continue to do so to this very day, but…

“Yes.” Jack answers shortly. He nods along with his words. “Yes, I’m happy here Doctor.” The Doctor nods too, eyes flicking all over the Hub as he tries to formulate his next sentence

“So, you wouldn’t…” The Time Lord trails off, “You wouldn’t think about coming back with me?” He asks.

“Go back with you?” Jack echoes. The Doctor wants him back? Another chance? He should jump at it. An opportunity to see the stars, travel the universe with the Time Lord he has pined for and loved for centuries.

He remembers the wait, watching time pass him by as he lived through it all. War, after war. Invention after invention. Every bad moment, every ruthless act created on planet Earth since the 18th century was seen by Captain Jack Harkness as he lay in wait for the Time Lord that would take him away again. Who would love him and keep him and show him parts of galaxies never seen by human eyes. They could be together forever, the man who couldn’t die and the one who would regenerate long into the future.

Together. They could be happy.

“You said I was wrong.” Jack blurts it out before he can stop himself. Because those thoughts and memories were from a very different Captain Jack Harkness. One that believed in love and happiness and forever fairy tales. He doesn’t think that version of himself could possibly exist any longer.

Jack has lost more than any human could understand. Loves and friends and family, all ripped away from him at the most painful of moments. He’s lost wives and husbands, children and grandchildren; through death or through abandonment, he lost them all. He didn’t allow himself to love to anymore. It hurt more than it was worth so he had simply clung onto the one thing he thought he had left.

The Doctor.

“You said, I was wrong.” Jack says again, shaking his head. The Doctor had broken his heart all over again. It had been taped together so shoddily with the flimsiest of tape. The internal promise to himself that the Doctor could make it better somehow keeping him together. He could have made this all better. “You couldn’t look at me back then. You ran to the end of the _universe_ to get away from me, Doctor.” Jack can feel his temper rising and his voice raising.

“You volunteered me to _die_ the last time I saw you.” Jack explodes suddenly. “Like my life, didn’t matter in the slightest to you. Just because it’s not permanent doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt.” He says, voice dropping scarily quiet. “Do you know it feels Doctor? To have the air ripped from your lungs and feel your heart stop beating in your chest. To visit the darkness for however long it takes for your body to kick itself into gear. It’s like being dragged over hot coals when you wake up, Doctor. Your nerve endings _stitching_ themselves back together and firing all at once.” Jack swallows hard. “But I’d die without question for you.”

The captain’s hands ring together, fingers moving back and forth over a scarred ring around his wrist. It’s his lasting reminder of The Year. Chained up for so long as the Master’s plaything, the cuffs used to hold him in place had slowly began to cut into his skin. With each death, they healed. The process repeated again, and again… Jack’s body had slowly healed itself around the metal as though it belonged to Jack.

Since being released, with each death those scars had faded. One day there would be no reminder of the ordeal he had faced but right now they’re still very much present.

“I love you, Doctor.” Jack says, breaths coming unevenly as he speaks.

Jack notices the Doctor’s eyes are no longer uncomfortably trained on the immortal but somewhere distantly over his shoulder. He looks afraid and somehow sadder than he did before. Jack twists where he stands.

Ianto…

Beautiful Ianto…

Jack’s chest is heaving, his striking blue eyes are wild as he spills out his heart to the Time Lord that abandoned him. And instead now he looks to the man who saved him, who stands there stoic as always but who’s anger still somehow betrays the slightest hint of fear.

Fingers etch at scars a little more fervently.

The man who gave him a reason to stay sane and come home…

Jack has to wonder how long Ianto has been stood there, how much of that had been heard. Ianto knew about The Year – Jack had told him not long after he’d returned. Hiding it was doing them both more harm than good. But the details? The involuntary deaths? That would be newer information.

The Welshman is standing there, not speaking out of turn as he never does, dressed in the softest materials capable of making pyjamas. His hair is stuck out at angles and his expression a mixture of anger and exhaustion. Truthfully, he’s a mess.

And Jack has never loved someone more.

His face softens immediately, a smile pulling over his features. Jack wouldn’t blame Ianto for thinking he was going to leave. He could quite honestly say that a few years ago, even after such a blow out between the two he would have dropped everything and gone back. Self-preservation didn’t matter when life with the Doctor was a chance he could have.

But not any longer.

Jack takes a few steps back, arm reaching out and taking Ianto’s hand into his own. He tugs him closer, keeping him against his side. That warmth and pressure is needed now to keep him calm, to make sure he knows he’s making the right decision.

“Doctor, this is Ianto Jones.”

“Hello, Ianto Jones.” The Doctor responds. Jack’s never seen the Time Lord look more uncomfortable in his life.

“Doctor.” Ianto greets in a low tone. Fingers slowly encircle Jack’s wrist, kind touches running across his scars. Already, Ianto has picked up on his partner’s unease and is slowly working to calm him down.

Jack squeezes his hand softly.

“After that year.” Jack says carefully. “I came back for my team.” He explains, looking around the Hub. He chuckles softly. “They were incredible, Doctor.” Jack swallows. “I really wish you could have met more of them.”

Ianto’s grip tightens on his hand.

“But I came back for one of them for a different reason. About a year ago, I asked Ianto Jones on a date. Not in an office – he was very strict about that.” He laughs properly, bright eyes somehow managing to light up the room as he remembers. “But he said yes. And I…”

Jack trails off and turns to study Ianto’s features. Ianto holds his gaze for a few moments before his eyes flick down to their hands.

There are no words to describe Ianto Jones; nothing that would do him justice in the very least. His eyes are bluer than the seas of Boeshane, his laugh more uplifting than his mother singing him a lullaby each night before bed. His touch as gentle as the sand on the beaches back home.

Ianto has the ability to care so much about every person he meets while maintaining a stoic guard at all times. He has a personality not many truly know unless he lets down that mask he hides behind and invites you in. And he’ll only invite you in the moments he is most comfortable in. And if you’re not there for every moment then likely you will miss it.

Jack never wants to miss a moment again.

“I can’t leave him.” Jack says, turning back to the Doctor. He doesn’t see how Ianto’s head comes back up in surprise. Another set of blue eyes now trained on their boyfriend, the two seemingly taking it in turns to look at each other in these early hours of the morning. "Not for you, not for the TARDIS, not for every unexplored wonder of that universe. Ianto comes first."

Jack takes a breath.

"If you need me; if you ever need my help to fight off some enemy far away in a distant galaxy, then I'll be there. You can count on me, Doctor. I will give my life time and time again to help your cause... but I'll always come home to him. Okay?”

Ianto’s gaze is still held fast on his captain, surprise melting into pure adoration and any anger once held towards the Doctor quickly dissipating as he focuses solely on Jack and the love he can feel radiating from his chest.

“Okay.” The Doctor says with a nod. He knows a losing battle it would seem; and this is certainly one them.

“You’re lonely, Doctor.” Jack tells him earnestly. “I’ve felt that too. Like there’s no one out there that could possibly begin to relate to what you’ve been through?” He suggests. “Which is why you want me, isn’t it? Lived so long, seen so much. Can’t ever die on you.” Jack lets a breath out of his nose with a smile. “You don’t need someone who relates, Doctor.” He says, glancing to look at Ianto once again. Jack finally catches the smitten way in which Ianto is smiling at him. He turns back to the Doctor. “You just need someone who understands anyway.”

The Doctor finally smiles. Jack thinks it might be a real one. He used to be quite good at the reading the Time Lord but time apart has certainly made it more difficult.

“Go find someone out there. Someone that needs you to show them the universe to make them happy.” Jack tells him. “Treat them _better_ , better than you treated me but go have fun, Doctor.”

The Doctor nods, feet shuffling across the floor where he stands before taking a breath.

“You’re right, Jack. Of course, you’re right. And I’m sorry, yeah… for things I said and how I treated you.” He says earnestly. Jack smiles.

He finally untangles himself from Ianto’s grip and steps into the Doctor’s space. Leaning in, his hand comes up against the Doctor’s face and tenderly he lets his fingertips ghost the skin there. Jack closes his eyes and kisses the Doctor’s opposite cheek.

“Goodbye, Doctor.” Jack whispers as he pulls back.

He forces himself apart from the Time Lord he still loves, standing still as he watches the Doctor nods and turn away from him. Jack remains in place as he gets further away, the TARDIS door opening and closing in front of him for what may be the last time in his life and the Doctor steps inside.

A breath leaves his body that still stands stiff until a warm hand takes his once again. There are tears in Jack’s eyes as he turns back to Ianto, letting out a shaky breath as the engines kick back into life.

Ianto untangles their hands as quickly as they had come together now he has his boyfriend facing him. His arms wrap fully around Jack, enveloping him into an embrace as Jack follows suit. Jack’s hands come up to take both of Ianto’s cheeks between them, fingers spanning all the way down to his jaw and neck.

The two crash together in a passionate kiss, their eyes closing. Emotions take control in this situation and Ianto’s lips don’t need words to tell Jack he loves him. Fervent, deep and slow the two take the time to indulge in a kiss well deserved

Jack’s mind screams out that he loves this man in his arms. That he should tell him over and over that he has never loved anyone the way he loves _him_. Yet fear renders him incapable in this moment.

But that’s okay because he loves someone that understands him.

The TARDIS engines fade into the distance, like an echo of a dream Jack can’t quite remember and Ianto finally pulls back. Jack finds his lips chasing those that he misses already as his head comes to rest against Ianto’s shoulder. He loses himself in the scent of the Welshman almost instantly.

“Let’s go to bed.” Ianto tells him softly.


End file.
